Dan Savage takes a dim view of Valentine's Day. He and his husband Terry admittedly don't give a shit about the holiday. The only chocolate Dan gives Terry is as he describes 'jokey'—a half a Snickers bar he found in his pocket. But make no mistake, the sex advice columnist-cum-activist still considers himself a romantic. He just prefers to show it in other ways.
If there is one thing to be learned from Valentine’s Day, it’s that scheduled romance isn’t unromantic—not if you’re doing it right
I've been a fan of his podcast, Savage Lovecast, since a good friend introduced it to me in 2009. We used to sit and listen together giggling half the time, the other half in rapt attention practically taking notes. One of those episodes included a particularly sane piece of advice, one that for me helped untangle my younger self's desire to complicate what should be simple. So with Valentine's day around the corner, I wanted to revisit this grain of knowledge, so I called Savage up...
You advise your listeners to have sex before going out to dinner on Valentine's Day.
That's a much longer way of saying fuck first, which is my advice.
Can you give me some background to that advice? Was that based on people telling you their personal stories?
No, actually it was mail that I got here on February 15th, from people asking me if their relationship was doomed, or if their partner wasn't attracted to them anymore. Because they got flowers, they got chocolate, they got taken out to dinner, but they didn't get fucked. And I would look at that trajectory: flowers (who gives a shit), chocolate (I love chocolate), a big heavy romantic meal with wine and crème brulée and everything else... and who wants to fuck after that? So, if you want to make sure you get fucked on Valentine's Day, fuck first, then go out to dinner. Not only will the sex be out of the way, but it's easier to get a reservation at 9 or 10 o'clock, and then when you go home you won't be going home to performance anxiety or disappointment if nothing happens.
This isn't something I've ever done, I don't do Valentine's Day. My husband and I don't do these romantic days of obligation that seem to terrorize other people. The idea that you would go out to dinner and then go home expecting to have sex, just to me, as a gay guy and as a human just seems so obviously on its face a lousy plan and a bad strategy if it's the crucial thing. It's not as if I was getting letters from people who were saying "I got fucked on Valentine's Day, but I didn't get dinner." It was only, "I got dinner on Valentine's Day and didn't get fucked."
Do think that people are not communicating with each other? Or do you think they don't realize why they didn't have sex?
Yeah people don't communicate. You know 90% of my job in the advice racket is to gently encourage people to go tell their partner what they just told me. I don't know what's in their partner's head. But Occam's razor, you know, they didn't fuck you after a steak dinner with red wine and chocolate cake? They probably love you, they're probably just full and exhausted—and drunk.
Do you have advice for guys who are at this very moment knotted up with anxiety about Valentine's Day?
Don't escalate. Never escalate. Because if you set yourself up to outdo what you did last year, you put yourself on a path of, like, an arm's race. Where eventually you are going to bankrupt yourself, all of a sudden, à la Soviet Union in the '80s. Find something that works, a certain kind of flower that she loves, or a kind of expensive chocolate that does whatever chocolate does to women, and get that. And then next year get that same thing. It's a ritual, it's not a proposal. You don't need to do a goddamn flashmob.
What do you think people should do on Valentine's Day to have more fun and less pressure?
There's nothing sexier than seeing your partner through somebody else's eyes. So go do something together out in the world. Go out dancing with other people, together. The moment you see your partner desired by another person is a moment that reawakens your own desire. But I'm a sex pervert and no one should listen to anything I have to say.
Shit! I called the wrong guy.
Yeah you did.
I tell Dan Savage that I always imagined we'd talk on the phone one day when I was in need of his advice. And that I'm so glad this is how it ended up happening instead. He tells me that now I have his phone number, and I should call if I ever do need his advice.
